-7-

Return Harmony Home

Drake awoke to a cool rag being placed on his head. He felt somewhat soothed by this and it was a nice distraction to the heaviness and pain the rest of his body felt. He felt like he had been hit by a truck...and a plane...and a train. As he opened his eyes he saw Chloe over him back in their hotel room.

"...Chloe?" he said weakly to her.

"Oh, thank God you're finally awake!" she cried in relief. She hugged him tightly.

Drake looked to the ceiling and then back to Chloe. "What the...hell happened to me?" he asked, unaware as to how he had gotten into this position.

Chloe pulled over a wooden chair next to her. "Well..." she began as she sat. "You and Victor were carrying out the plan we had devised earlier to get Elena and the artifact in entirety, but...some things went awry." she told him.

Drake felt his heart drop. Things were coming back to him and it wasn't good. He remembered that Elena and Sully were taken hostage by Adelle and her men, as well as the necklace. Although he already knew the answer to his next question, he had to ask it anyway.

"So...where are they now?"

Chloe just sighed and shook her head sadly. "I...don't know." she answered after a few moments.

"Son of a bitch." Drake cursed to himself, covering his face with his hands. "So, Red has everything. Everything."

"Well..."Chloe said and took the rag from Drake's head and dipped it in the bowl of cool water that lay next to her. Then replaced it on his head. "maybe not everything." she continued.

Drake's eyes zoned in on her hearing these words. "What do you mean?"

Chloe stood and grabbed her laptop from a table across the room. After a few keystrokes and sitting back in her chair, she turned the screen towards him.

Drake sat up when he saw what was on the screen. Although he wasn't sure what it was, but he knew it was significant. "Chloe...what is this?" he asked.

The screen showed a statue of a large bust. The man it resembled was Sir Francis Drake himself. The stone had arms jutting out of the sides. This statue looked so realistic it was almost as if it was Sir Francis reincarnated.

"The ring you used to wear around your neck, the one of Sir Francis, was apparently part of a set. It wasn't just the one ring, there was a second—the one Adelle took from you. Legends say if one wears both of the rings it will grant them unbelievable powers." Chloe explained to him.

Drake took a beat to take in what she was saying. "But..the ring we stole from the museum had more than enough power already, and the one I used to wear didn't seem to do anything. If you combine both of them, what could possibly happen?"

"That's the million dollar question, mate. I find it hard to believe that one ring has power and the other one doesn't. The one you had before must have had some sort of power that we just didn't know about." she answered.

"I...wore that necklace for twenty years and I didn't ever have any power." he told her. He couldn't think that he had something that righteous for so many years and didn't crack the code of it. "Where is this statue, Chloe?" he asked her.

"I was hoping you could tell me." she said. "I've been researching this thing the entire time you were out and I keep coming up dry. Everything I find leads to a dead end."

Drake let out a hard sigh. "Was there anything about the ring that could give us some sort of clue?" he asked.

Chloe pulled a piece of paper from her tight jean pocket. "All I wrote down was the inscription on the ring." she said, handing the piece of paper to Drake.

The words on the piece of paper were in Greek, luckily Drake knew that language well. "Nostos eirēnē..." he read aloud.

"And what the hell is that supposed to bloody mean?" she asked in frustration.

"It's Greek." Nate told her. "It means, 'Return harmony home."

"Do you think that's why Sir Francis had the rings separated all these years? To bring peace from them not being brought together?" she asked.

"Yes, exactly." he said, feeling he was getting closer to the answer he needed.

"Well, that's all well and good but what good does that saying do to show us where Sir Francis held his statue?" Chloe asked him. She failed to see how any of this had any significance to their mission.

Drake turned the paper over to see if there was anything else he could use as a clue. He eyes fixated on the writing beneath the saying on the little scrap of paper. "Was this also on the ring? The numbers 60 and nine?" he asked, looking to her.

"I have always had a thing for that number..." she said with a wink. "But, yes, it was on the ring, right after the saying."

Drake was onto something, he just had to concentrate. He hopped up from the bed and began to pace around the room deep in thought. " Nostos eirēnē...60...and nine..." he muttered to himself over and over.

Suddenly, he came to a deep hault. "Wait...Chloe that's it! They're coordinates!" he exclaimed, proud of his discovery.

Chloe just raised a brow at him. "And how the hell do you figure that? I can see the numbers bearing some sort of significance but where to?" she asked, thinking Nate was finally losing what was left of his mind.

"Nostos eirēnē." he repeated to her. "N and E. Meaning North and East. The numbers are the latitude and longitude." he then bolted back over to the laptop to see where exactly these coordinates led to. "This shows the statue is in...Norway." he said.

Chloe knew without a doubt that that was going to be their next stop. If they were able to make some sense of the carvings on that ring, they knew it was only a matter of time before Adelle connected the dots, so they had to make a break for it.

Chloe grinned, knowing they had another adventure in store. "So when do we leave?" she asked.

Drake smiled back at her. "How fast can you pack?"